Private Tick Tick Boom!

[Frea Sheplin]

Wait, it worked? It actually worked? Frea looked at Cordé as she told her story. It was true that Jedi had their own people for healing. People that could mend wounds with nothing and ease pain without much the same. But that was not the big part, the big part was that Cordé actually shared enough for Frea to have something to roll on.

The Defense Force didn't let just anyone into its ranks or contractor list. There was a security clearance protocol and routine in place that included the SIA looking into your past, and especially so for the people that would be treating their soldiers in the field. If Cordé had worked in the field for the Defense Force then she had clearly passed that trial which meant that as far as Frea was aware she was not a criminal element.

So, what did she have to go with? Maybe the group was too new for the SIA to have caught her, and yet at the same time… Hmm, no. SIA had always been damned good at their job. Which might just have been where Cordé was from, right? Frea toyed with the idea before she decided it was too early to really tell one way or the other where Cordé was working from.

"Hey, I don't blame you." Frea laughed. "You'd be as likely to get a thanks as you are to catch a dose of heavy wattage coursing through your body with them."

Wait a minute. What about that oath though? Frea had read enough gas station 'romance literature' to know that doctors had a responsibility to treat people in need, no matter who they were. Frea's eyes squinted for a moment before the unwitting excitement got the better of her. An accusing finger rose to point at Cordé with a smirk. An excited gasp filled her lungs with air before she began speaking.

"You are actually more of a field medic than someone looking to be a doctor." Frea stated. "I mean, if you can pick and choose your patients and who you are willing to save, you would be breaking the oath that doctors take upon beginning their studies."

Cordé Sabo

 

[Frea Sheplin]

Cordé's lips drew into a thin line, and she levelled her look at Frea.

"That is the code, yes."

Had she been caught? It's not that Cordé wasn't a medical practitioner, but that wasn't her full time job. Her passion, yes, but her code was driven more by her upbringing on Humbarine than any sort of lab coat.

Clearly, Frea had her suspicions. And while Cordé's agency wasn't entirely clandestine, it was best not to mix affairs — lest one be devalued or diluted.

"But the code is to drive a standard — one I haven't met because I haven't had the chance to choose whether or not to help a Sith, remember?" She forced a thin smile.

"The kolto juice seems to be working. You're certainly more coherent than before — secure enough to get back on your feet. I'll speak with the front desk about a perscription for you to take home for the pain and to help you sleep. You have to take time off to get better, just a few days. And then let's check back in?"

---

It got her attention. Frea saw the way that Cordé's posture seemed to change. Something in the accusation caused her to recoil and assess the damage as if to ensure that Frea didn't know too much. The rest of the interaction was... Stiff. As much as the code was there to drive a standard it was also there to ensure that the sanctity of life was kept intact. Far be it for Frea to judge the judge, but the seeming unwillingness to admit any would-do wrongdoings was almost amusing to her.

Chance or no, Cordé was clearly a woman with a strong opinion on the subject of Sith, but this was not the time to push further. Frea could imagine where that would lead, and not many of those directions were ones she particularly cared much for. Especially not with a concussion that had threatened her life just a few minutes ago.

Bless modern medicine.

"You got it, doc." Frea sighed and slid off the table and back on her feet. "And just to make sure, how many days are we talking about here?"

"Girl's gotta find her kicks somehow. Eventually."

"And, really, there's nothing wrong with being a medic. You still save lives at the end of the day. I just..." Frea shrugged it off. "Hope you save the right ones."

The ones that supported what Frea believed in, but she hoped that line would float in-between the lines of what she had said so far.

 

[Cordé Sabo]

"Your kicks are what I'm worried about." Cordé easily slipped into her natural demeanour.

"Five, please. Imagine a work week, but of rest. If you leave your details with the desk, it'll permit me to make a house call. Or you can come back to this clinic. If you do neither, at least please call me on day three."

She leaned over the counter, and scribbled out the authorization of a prescription and attached her card.

Then Frea dropped a thought bomb. Cordé's lips drew in a thin line. For a moment, she glared at the wall ahead of her in silence. Then she turned around and handed Frea Sheplin all that she'd written, and her details.

The right lives?

"Hard to know until after we save them. If you're insinuating a Sith could prove me wrong —" she paused, thoughtful, "I'm not sure what to say."

 

[Frea Sheplin]

Five days. Alright, Frea could probably do that. She weighed the card up and down in her hand, rapped it against her knuckles for a bit before she looked up at Cordé with a grin.

"Contact details and a visit to my home? Please, I think we are moving a little too fast." She laughed at her own joke. Not too long after that she noticed the silence. "That was a bad joke. Sorry."

Well, it was wishful thinking at the very least. It wasn't exactly the pleasant bedside manner that had Frea spinning in circles around her own words earlier as much as something else that was pleasant. And of course, the silence wasn't really because of the joke as much of what Frea had said before about saving the right lives. She had already done her best to bury the thought by the time Cordé gave her a response. Frea shifted and gnashed her jaw as the embarrassment demanded of her.

"Oh, you know," Frea began and rubbed at her neck. "Books and covers and all that."

Her throat cleared.

"I'll reach out and— yeah, all that." Frea let in a deep breath. "Okaygoodbye, good job! See ya. Auf wiedersehen."

Nope. No response needed. Frea pocketed the card and left a small stack of credits behind as she pushed towards the door and outside, anywhere but this very clinic to let her increasing redness subside out of sight of Cordé and get over whatever the hell she had just tried to say during the medic's flight from the realm of reality.

They'd be in touch again. Frea just had to play it cool until then. Cool like a cucumber.

Cordé Sabo